One sector which would particularly benefit from the use of the present invention is the airline industry. Beverage service aboard commercial aircraft has changed little over the last thirty years. Flight attendants for most airlines still wheel a mobile service cart filled with metal beverage cans up and down the aisles to provide beverage service to each passenger. However, the use of cans hampers the airlines' ability to offer more effective and efficient beverage service to their passengers.
A typical, major U.S. airline will use 50–60 million cans of beverages a year, a substantial portion of which are wasted. For example, most airlines end up throwing out 15–25% of their canned beverages. This is because passengers, on average, do not consume the entire amount of beverages in each can and, for less frequently requested drinks, like ginger ale, cans go stale before being fully used and/or even before they are actually served. Thus, there is a need for a beverage system that minimizes this waste by dispensing a variable amount of beverage to thereby satisfy individual customer needs while simultaneously ensuring that the existing beverage supply does not go flat or stale.
Using cans for this type of beverage service is extremely inefficient for several reasons. First, since cans are typically stored in trays on beverage carts, flight attendants are forced to search for the desired cans among a variety of possibilities. Time is wasted opening and closing such trays during the beverage service. On a plane carrying hundreds of passengers, the amount of wasted time can be significant. Moreover, the repetitive bending motion required to access these trays is also physically taxing on the flight attendants. Second, since there is not enough room in conventional airline service carts to store both food and beverage cans, flight attendants are forced to make at least two trips to distribute food and drinks to passengers—one trip down the aisle to distribute drinks and a second trip to deliver meals. Third, upon completion of the beverage service, flight attendants must take additional time to collect and dispose of the distributed cans, which takes away from time that could be devoted to catering to individual needs of the passengers (e.g., getting pillows, blankets, etc.) and/or performing additional safety-related tasks. Fourth, once the empty cans are collected, they must be stored until the airplane lands. This requires different storage space in addition to that used for the full cans. Full cans are neatly and efficiently stored in trays to minimize space requirements. Empty, or partially empty cans, on the other hand, are typically placed in trash bags without regard to efficient use of space. As a result, the trash typically uses two or more times the space taken up by full cans. Fifth, as previously mentioned, many of the beverage cans still contain some or a large portion of the beverage. This further complicates the disposal issue by requiring the cans to be placed in liquid tight containers and further necessitates additional cleaning of the disposal areas of the airplane galley due to inevitable spilled beverages. Thus, there is a need to minimize the amount of waste associated with a beverage service and optimize the amount of available storage space on an aircraft. There is also a need for a beverage dispensing system that reduces a flight attendant's workload and increases his/her productivity by eliminating the need to search for the desired beverages stored in the trays of a beverage cart. There is also a need to make airline beverage service more efficient by allowing the simultaneous distribution of meals and beverages. There is also a need to give flight attendants more time to attend to their other duties (e.g., safety and care of the passengers) by streamlining the distribution of beverages and eliminating the collection and disposal of cans upon completion of the beverage service. There is also a need to avoid dealing with partially consumed cans of beverage.
In light of the United States' heightened sense of national security, it has become imperative for airlines to be concerned about minimizing, to the extent possible, their exposure to terrorist activity. Since beverage cans are opaque, they are prime candidates to be filled with hazardous fluids without detection. While translucent beverage containers (e.g., clear plastic bottles) would substantially eliminate this risk, no known dispensing systems use these types of containers. Thus, there is a need for a beverage dispensing system, which is more easily inspected for tampering and poses less security risk. Further, there is a need for a beverage dispensing system which is adaptable for use with translucent containers such as clear plastic bottles. Still further, there is a need for a means to secure these beverage containers within the dispensing system in order to reduce the likelihood of tampering and/or to indicate that tampering has occurred.
Another problem with using cans on airplanes is that they can easily be adapted to be used as weapons. A person can twist a can in half, thereby creating two weapons with jagged edges. Such “impromptu” weapons are a problem because they can be created onboard without having to smuggle anything onto the plane, which further adds to the element of surprise. Thus, there is a need to remove cans from the beverage service on aircrafts in order to minimize exposure to possible terrorist activity.
While beverage dispensing systems have been developed for aircraft use, none dispense pre-mixed product from “off-the-shelf” containers. Rather, such systems are “post-mix” systems in that they use separate containers of syrup and water or carbonated water, which must be independently stored and interconnected for use. Moreover, the syrup and water containers tend to be large and cumbersome making changing of empty containers awkward while in-flight.
Known self-contained beverage systems, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,749 to Oyler et al., are reliant on cumbersome, opaque, and pressurized CO2 canisters, which pose security risks similar to those described above. Further, this type of system requires special handling due to the pressurization of the CO2 canister, which, if not handled properly, could cause catastrophic consequences in flight. For example, if the cap of the CO2 cannister becomes dislodged during the flight, the canister would most likely act as a projectile or missile and cause serious bodily injury to one or more passengers or, worse still, puncture the skin of the aircraft—a result that could be fatal for everyone. Thus, there is a need for a beverage dispensing system that replaces canned beverage service without creating additional in-flight safety risks by relying on the use of highly pressurized tanks containing CO2 or other gases. Similarly, there is a need for a beverage dispensing system that further minimizes the risk of tampering by not using opaque containers. There is also a need for a system that uses readily available pre-mix beverages in small, convenient, and off-the-shelf sizes.
Another problem with known systems, such as disclosed by Oyler et al., is that they cannot be retrofitted to existing fleets of beverage carts due to their size. Thus, an airline seeking to use a system of this type would need to replace its entire fleet of beverage carts, which would be quite costly. Indeed, there may be as many as 30–48 beverage carts used on a typical large passenger jet. Given the above-identified problems, and perhaps others, known post-mix beverage dispensing systems simply do not offer the cost savings to justify replacing existing fleets of airline beverage carts. Furthermore, existing beverage carts currently meet the airlines' needs. They are appropriately sized to easily move down the aisle of an airplane. The airplane galleys are all designed and constructed to securely hold these special carts and they have proven themselves reliable in years of service. Altering the cart design could have significant implications in other areas of airplane design and construction which, in turn, could be enormously expensive. Thus, there is a need for a beverage dispensing system that can be retrofit to existing fleets of service carts without any modification.
The present invention represents, among other things, an improvement over previous attempts at eliminating cans from conventional beverage service and is designed to overcome the aforementioned problems and other needs. As one ordinarily skilled in the art can appreciate, the present invention is not necessarily limited to use in an airline context, but is also envisioned to be used in any context in which it is desirable to replace canned beverage service and substitute a simple, convenient, efficient, and portable system for dispensing beverages. For example, the present invention could be used by railroads, bus lines, or cruise ships to provide beverages to their respective passengers. Moreover, the present invention can be adapted for use in a catering business, used at home, or rented out for use with private events. Similarly, the present invention could be used in connection with tailgating parties, school lunch services, or by restaurants. The present invention could also be used on golf carts to offer beverage service to golfers on a golf course. Still further, since the present invention removes the need to pour beverages from a bottle by hand, it could be easily used by handicapped or elderly individuals for their personal needs. These are but a few of the applications for the present invention. Such examples have been presented for purposes of illustration and in no way limit the use of the present invention. No doubt other uses will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the present disclosure. All such end-uses are deemed to be within the spirit and scope of the present invention.